Tag Archives: Gloria Vando

Books

The Poets Gather for LOST AND LOCAL

December 22, 2019

A thirty-hour stretch of rain in Long Beach will commence in about two hours, but my grades for the semester got turned in earlier today, and the leftover kale salad from last night’s dinner with Laurel Ann Bogen in Brentwood proved to be the perfect complement for the rest of our dinner. Did you say, “dinner in Brentwood, Bill?” Well, that is more than a little bit out of my usual price range for eating out, but a single $15 raffle ticket I purchased at the Beyond Baroque awards gala several weeks ago proved to be just the ticket: I won a $100 gift card at a restaurant called Bottlefish, on San Vicente Blvd. Linda and I decided to treat Laurel Ann to a holiday dinner out, and the food was absolutely superb. If anyone wants to splurge for a special occasion, I would urge you to consider this restaurant. We ate early, so the restaurant was still at a slow enough pace that we had a chance to talk with the chef, who is from Israel. Apparently, this is the start of a chain of restaurants with a low-key approach to top-notch dining.

The best news of the evening was that Laurel’s cat, Chumley, is on the rebound. Someone mentioned to her that very old cats, especially as arthritis makes it difficult to bend their joints, lose weight not because of a decrease in appetite, but because it is simply too painful to bend down to the bowl and eat. “Put your cat’s bowl on a little stand. That way the way is almost eating at mouth-level.” Laurel tried it, and Chumley has put on two pounds in a couple of weeks, and is a much happier cat. Age 23 and still going strong with Laurel’s love!

Beyond Baroque’s 51st year concluded with a celebration of the publication of Carol Ellis’s LOST AND LOCAL in the Pacific Poetry Series. Before Carol read from her book, poets, editors, and impresarios gather for a group photograph.

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(copyright, Linda Fry, 2019)

(Left to right, front row: Richard Modiano; Carol Ellis; Suzanne Lummis; (Second row) Bill Mohr; Gloria Vando; top row: Quentin Ring; Liz Camfiord).